Light Years
by hibbleton
Summary: Futurefic, Derek/Meredith. Assumes show canon up to 4.11, set around 30 years later. Things aren't what they seem, and likely never will be again.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note**: So, I swore I would never post a work-in-progress because I don't want to risk leaving an unfinished story, but I have four stories in various stages of completion on my hard drive and I think that posting this will pressure me into writing faster and better. And I really, really want to write this story.

* * *

"Hello?" I call out as I enter the house where I grew up.

My brother stumbles in behind me, dragging our suitcases. There are still a ton of boxes in the moving truck but we'll deal with those later.

Mom appears from her study upstairs and leans over the railing, all beauty and grace in her fifty-eight years. "Are those my children? I haven't heard from them in so long I've forgotten what they sound like," she says with humor in her voice.

"Sorry we haven't called in a while. We thought we'd just show up and surprise you." Chase and I are horrible children, we know. I sent mom an email or text every week or so just to say hey or to let her know we were still alive, but we kind of just lost ourselves in college life in the Big Apple. I told her we were coming home for the summer, but I thought it would be more fun if we just showed up without telling her what day. Plus, we took the scenic route (as in, we drove across the country and even crossed the border into Canada a couple times) so we didn't know how long it would take anyway.

Actually, Chase and I were pretty sure mom and dad would be really pissed if they found out what we did – like we could have been dead in a ditch in Montreal, or something dramatic like that, and they wouldn't know because we didn't tell them where we were going – so we decided it would be best to not say anything about our trip.

Mom descends the stairs and opens her arms when she reaches the bottom. Chase and I drop our bags and go over to meet her.

She smells like she always does and I take a deep breath. I almost forgot how good it was to be home.

She loosens her grip on us and then moves us backwards a few steps so she can get a good look. She does it every time she sees us after a long absence. "You both still look like kids to me. You always will."

"Mom!" Chase rolls his eyes. I guess he has a point, because he's six feet tall and all dark and handsome (according to my friends anyway). I'm shorter and I get carded everywhere I go so I don't have much of an argument there.

"So what are you doing home, anyway? And where's dad?" I ask.

"Where else would he be?" She doesn't sound exasperated or anything. It's just a fact of life that he's not around much. Granted, she's not usually around much either. Dad's the Chief of Surgery at Seattle Grace and he's at the hospital, like, twelve hours a day, seven days a week. And mom's usually right there with him.

"Yeah, I figured, but you're home..."

"I'm actually taking some time off," she says, and Chase actually gasps out loud. "I figured this is the last summer I'll really get to see you two before you really grow up. I mean, you won't even have summers anymore after this year."

My heart melts, completely. I hug my mom again. I've been hoping to spend more time with her for forever and she's right – this is kind of our last chance. Chase and I are starting med school at Dartmouth and Harvard in September.

"We might even be able to convince dad to take a couple weeks off to go on a real vacation," she continues.

"Awesome! We should go to Italy or Greece or something." Chase has been into getting cultured lately. If I know him well, and as his twin sister I probably know him better than anyone, he's just doing it to impress the women he thinks he'll meet in med school.

"Well, we'll see what your dad says. He might not be able to get away." Still, there's no disappointment or anything in her voice. I don't know how she does it. I know I'm definitely not marrying a doctor. "Actually, I should go call him. You can take your things upstairs. I got your rooms ready last week when your exams ended. You two may be awful at communication but I can find these things out, you know," she says with a smirk and raise of her eyebrow.

She gets the phone from the kitchen and dials a familiar number. "Good afternoon, Allison. It's Meredith. Is Derek in his office?"

I grab one of my huge suitcases and start hauling it up the stairs. Mom's voice drifts from the living room. "Derek, guess who've decided to grace us with their presence?" A pause. "What? No. Julia and Chase are home." I have to smile at that. Dad might be a world-renowned neurosurgeon, but he doesn't always piece things together all that quickly.

I make it to my room and open the door. My entire apartment in New York was smaller than this bedroom. _And _I don't have to share a bathroom here. Why did I ever leave?

"Are you guys hungry?" Mom yells from downstairs. "We can order something in."

"No pizza!" Chase and I yell simultaneously, from our respective rooms.

"Okay. Well, what about Thai or Vietnamese?"

"Thai sounds good!" I shout.

"Yeah," Chase agrees.

"All right, I'll have your dad pick it up. He'll be home in a few hours."

Well, it's a good thing we're not starving.

After a half hour of unpacking, I go off to find my mom. I hear music (something old, like Interpol or Radiohead) coming from the den. She's taking a nap on the couch, so I turn the music down but she stirs and wakes up anyway.

"Julia. Are you hungry? There isn't much here, but we can order something in."

Um... "You already asked us that, and you said we were getting Thai. And that dad's going to bring it home."

"Oh, that's right. Sorry. I'm just tired, I guess."

"You work too much, mom," I say, moving to sit next to her on the couch.

"And soon, you will too. Are you sure you want to go to med school? I mean, I really don't want you to feel like you have to because your dad and I are doctors. Actually, we'd probably feel better if you weren't interested in medicine."

"Mom, Chase and I practically grew up at the hospital. We were raised by like, ten surgeons. You have to figure we were just going to be naturally drawn to it. Plus we have two famous doctor parents. It seems like a waste to not go."

She shakes her head and rests it on my shoulder. "Nothing you two do could ever be a waste."

I lean my head on hers. "Love you, mom."

"Love you, too," she responds. "Want to watch a movie while we wait for your dad?"

"Sure. Breakfast Club?" It's kind of our thing to watch that old movie together. It was her favorite movie when she was younger and I found it and watched it almost every day when I was thirteen and in a bit of an awkward phase.

She smiles and nods, so I get up to fiddle around with dad's ridiculous entertainment system.

A couple hours later, the movie is over and we're watching CNN and talking politics when my dad pokes his head into the den.

"Daddy!" I run over to him and get the best hug ever. He's done it since I was little, and even though he's kind of old now (not that he'd ever let anyone think it), he insists on lifting me off the ground. I'm a grown woman and everything – all 110 pounds of me – but I don't think I'll ever get tired of it.

"Hey Junebug," he says with a smile. He lets me go and keeps his arm around me while he wraps the other around mom. "How are my favorite girls doing?"

Mom gets up on her toes and places a kiss on dad's cheek. "We're vegetating. How was work?"

"It was all right. No surgeries, I just worked through my mountain of paperwork. Where's the troublemaker?"

I turn around, but not in time to brace myself for Chase's tackle.

"Dad!" he exclaims, slapping my dad on the back from my former position beside him. I examine my elbows for carpet burn. I hate my brother sometimes.

"Hey buddy, want to go fishing tomorrow morning?"

"Does that involve waking up at an obscene hour? One that I'd probably normally be going to sleep at?" Chase looks like dad, but he's more like mom with the whole morning thing.

Dad rolls his eyes. "I'll come drag you out of bed at four."

Chase pretends to drop dead and mom nudges him with her foot with a giggle. Dad looks over at her with so much adoration and I hope so hard that I can find what they have someday.

"I'm hungry," mom announces, and Chase mumbles his agreement from the floor.

"All right, I picked up all your favorites. Let's go eat," dad says, leading us out to the kitchen.

Chase sets the table and we sit down for our first family meal at home in ages. Mom and dad flew out to New York for a couple nights over Christmas and dad rented out an entire restaurant to seat our extended family. Between his sisters and their husbands, my cousins and their families, there were sixty-something blood Shepherds (I've lost track of everyone's actual last names). The whole thing just made me feel grateful for our little family in Seattle and our handful of non-blood relatives.

I'm a pro with chopsticks after four years in New York so I dive right into my Pad Thai but mom seems to be having trouble. I'm pretty sure she uses chopsticks when she has sushi, but maybe she's just out of practice.

"Want me to get you a fork, mom?" I offer.

"Uh, yeah, sure. That might be better. Thanks," she says with a sort of awkward smile.

Dad shoots her a weird look as I get up from my chair, but he doesn't say anything. Chase remains oblivious and will probably have food on his face when he looks up. Maybe I should suggest that he takes etiquette classes to go along with the whole culture thing.

"So, dad... mom said you might be able to get time off for a vacation?" I say, as I return to my seat.

"Yeah, maybe in early June, before elementary school gets out. It'll be chaos once kids get out on vacation and onto monkey bars and slippery pool decks."

"Or water skis," I add, with a glance over at Chase.

"Hey, I was in high school, then," he responds, as though that's some kind of justification.

Dad winces. "God, I'd blocked that memory out. Those hours in the waiting room were the longest of my life. I was the best neurosurgeon in a thousand mile radius and they wouldn't let me touch you."

"You were both fucking nuts." That gets me two death stares. "Pardon my French. Anyway, they had to sedate you both. It was humiliating."

"It's not their fault they love me so much, Jules," Chase declares with a shit-eating grin.

"You have sauce on your face, douchebag."

"Julia!" comes the stereo admonishment.

"Oh please, mom swears a hundred times more than I do."

The table is silent for a moment before dad bursts into laughter. "Sorry, Junebug. Any chance you had of being a classically refined lady was shot a long time ago. Between your mom and Cristina..."

"Hey!" my mom protests.

"It's true," I shrug. "But I love you anyway."

"I probably love you because of it," dad says, winking at mom. I fight the urge to regurgitate orange noodles.

Dinner goes on with Chase regaling our parents with stories of senior year and how we almost got thrown in the drunk tank one night. That kid is too honest for his own good.

Chase and I retire to our bedrooms after dinner to catch up with our friends and let them know we made it home alive. It was tough, saying goodbye to everyone. I wonder how many of them I'll keep in touch with, now that we're all spread across the country.

There's a knock at the door and I tell my mom to come in (she's the only one who would bother knocking).

"Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to come with me to the hospital tomorrow. Your aunts and uncles will want to see you, and they probably won't have time to come out here anytime too soon."

"Yeah, sure, mom!" I've missed my Seattle family, so I'm excited to see them. I figured my mom wouldn't be able to stay away from the hospital for long anyway.

She says goodnight and then leaves me to my privacy. It's been a while since I've had it, with roommates and the whole lack of space thing in New York.

I put on some music and get myself ready for bed. The music thing is a necessity for bedtime in this house, which I learned in a very unfortunate way when I was a kid. A very, _very_ unfortunate, traumatic way. I swore I'd need therapy for it, but I guess I turned out all right. I guess I can only hope I have an active sex life when I'm my parent's age.

Oh god, vomit.

I put a pillow over my head and hope that I can force myself to pass out from oxygen deprivation before my mind wanders any further in that direction.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note**: I just wanted to say thanks to anyone who's taking a chance on this fic and reading past the first chapter. I know I was taking a risk with both the subject matter and how I chose to tell the story, so seriously, thanks for giving it a shot.

Also, since there is more than one artist with a song called "Light Years", I'd like to note that this story is named after the one by Pearl Jam.

* * *

I roll out of bed at eight because my internal clock seems to think it's eleven. You would think they'd have come up with a cure for jet lag by now.

I walk past Chase's bedroom door, knowing that he'll be unconscious for a few more hours after that pre-dawn fishing excursion. I like that mother-daughter bonding time happens in normal daylight.

Mom is already up, sipping coffee in the kitchen while working over a crossword puzzle on the newsscreen. She and dad usually do them together when they have the time, but I guess he was out early today.

"G'morning," I mumble before pouring myself a cup of black coffee. I learned long ago to forgo sugar and milk.

"Morning. You're up early," mom notes with a smile.

"Jet lag. Wanna go into the hospital early and then go shopping or something?" Really, going shopping means getting to pick things out at Neiman Marcus and having mom pay for it. (It's possible that I'm a little spoiled.)

"Yeah, sure. We can pick up breakfast on the way." She never did learn to cook. "Do you think Chase wants to come?"

"Nah, he's out until the early afternoon. If there's cereal in the house, he'll be fine."

"Okay. I'm going to go shower then," she gets up and rinses her mug.

I pull her abandoned crossword puzzle across the table to see if I can finish it. Strangely enough, there are only a couple words filled in. Oh well. I close the puzzle screen and open up the celebrity gossip section, my one (okay, I have many) guilty pleasure.

* * *

"Hey, do you want to drive? You probably miss it," mom says, as we enter the garage.

"Mom, Chase and I drove like three thousand miles to get here."

"Well, you probably miss driving something fast."

She knows me too well. "The Porsche?" I ask hopefully.

She hands me the keys and I fight a squeal. I _love_ this car. I had dreams about this car whenever I fell asleep standing (because there's no room to fall over) on the horrendously crowded 1 train. There are five cars in here but this one is just for special occasions of mother and daughter, or father and son, or father and daughter, or mother and son, or father and mother... basically, one of my parents has to be in the car, and there are only two seats.

Chase is going to be so jealous. I'd consider waking him up just to rub it in his face, but then he might decide to come along and then we'd have to take one of the sedans. Screw that.

I place my hand on the door-handle and listen to the car's engine purr to life. The seat moves automatically to adjust to my height and I get in, taking in the amazing leather smell. "Good morning, Julia, where would you like to go today?"

"Seattle Grace Hospital," I say. I have no idea how anyone ever got around before nav systems came along.

"Excellent. You will arrive at your destination in approximately fifty-seven minutes," says the pleasant voice of the car.

"Jules, we've made this trip thousands of times, you can turn the thing off." Mom grew up in a time where cars didn't talk, and she still thinks it's weird but dad gets a huge kick out of it.

"The next Bainbridge Island Ferry will depart in sixteen minutes."

"See?" I say, "If I turned it off, I wouldn't get useful information like that."

"It leaves every twenty minutes!"

"Oh mom, you're so old-fashioned." This is a familiar fight.

"I'm not old-fashioned. I've followed every technological advance in medicine, and they've been incredible. But everything is automatic now and it's just like... we're losing control."

"We're not losing control, we've just delegated all the simple things in life to machines and computers so we can concentrate on the important stuff."

"I miss the simple things," she says quietly.

I look over to my mom, who's staring out the window at the wide open space of our property. I'm so glad my dad kept the whole thing, despite the county's attempts to buy parts of it for development. They offered him millions, but money was never an issue for our family. Everywhere we go is all hustle and bustle and throngs of people, but coming home is always like a breath of fresh air. Dad used to live in New York, so I'm guessing that was his plan when he bought the land.

Mom seems a bit more pensive than usual. I wish I knew what to say right now, but I don't know where to start. My parents always made sure that Chase and I knew how much they loved us even though they couldn't be around all the time, but they never really told us anything. If they had a fight, we didn't know about it. I suspected that things weren't always perfect, but then mom and dad would put on what I now know is a fake happy smile and go on with their days.

I know that mom and dad drink an occasional glass of wine, but never touch liquor. I know that mom has a lot of friends and dad has a lot of siblings. I know that they both grew up out east. I know that they've worked at Seattle Grace since well before Chase and I were born except for a couple years when mom was doing her fellowship in Boston. I know from Aunt Izzie that dad proposed in the middle of Sea-Tac Airport when mom got off the plane from Boston. And I know that when I sat on Santa's lap when I was five (Aunt Cristina told us from the start that Santa was a fraud, but we wrote to him anyway for extra presents), I asked for a little sister and dad was really sad afterwards.

I don't know anything about mom's parents, except that her mom was a famous surgeon and we sometimes call Dr. Webber "grandpa", but I'm pretty sure he's not actually her dad since, well, yeah. We never knew Grandpa Shepherd, either, but when Grandma Shepherd was buried next to him a few years ago, I noticed from the headstone that he passed away when dad was a kid.

They've always tried to protect us from all the bad things in life, and I know from volunteering at New York-Presbyterian that a lot of bad things can happen. I can't imagine what they must know from the thirty or forty years they've spent at the hospital. But still, we're kept in the dark about a lot of things and I think Chase and I are officially old enough to hear the whole story.

Now _I'm_ pensive.

Mom breaks the silence. "So are you dating anyone?" I think I preferred the silence.

"Um... no. Nobody special." I'd really rather not tell her about my habit of one night stands-turned-friends with benefits. "I didn't really have time for it between school and volunteering." It's the truth, but a girl has needs.

"Yeah, I guess I've been there," she responds. If she knew what I really meant, I _highly_ doubt she'd say that. "How's Chase?"

"He's... a serial monogamist."

"Trying to find 'the one'?" she says, in a tone more cynical than I expected to hear from her.

"In bulk."

She laughs a real laugh and I glance over at her again. I look a lot like her. My hair is more of a chocolate brown but it has the same softness to it. My eyes are darker, too, but they crinkle at the corner like hers do. I thankfully have her nose (no offense to my dad) and her build. Basically, anytime I introduce myself to someone who knows mom, I get the whole "spitting image of your mother" line. Fortunately, mom is seriously pretty, so I can safely consider it a compliment.

Chase looks more like dad. He's a bit taller and a bit broader, but he has the whole unruly black hair thing going on. He has mom's eye color, though, and the combination of dark hair and light eyes apparently makes him totally irresistible to women. It's ridiculous.

I spend the rest of the drive giving a sanitized summary of last semester to mom, and her whole melancholy thing seems to have passed by the time we pull into the hospital parking garage and stop next to dad's completely unnecessary Range Rover.

"So, what do I need to know before I walk through these doors?"

Mom thinks for a moment before shaking her head. "Everything's the same."

"Bailey's the head of general, Cristina and Izzie are co-heads of cardiothoracic, Uncle Mark is _still_ head of plastics..." I count them off on my fingers. There are more members of this mixed-up family but they're at private practices or hospitals out-of-state.

We enter the main building and my mom returns all the greetings aimed at her while I smile awkwardly beside her. I imagine that being the child of a celebrity would be a bit like this (except with flashing cameras, of course). Whenever my mom goes anywhere medical-related, though, people practically trip over themselves.

I guess it's why she didn't want me to be a doctor. People are going to expect me to carry on where my grandmother and mother left off, like a dynasty of amazing female surgeons or something. It's a lot of pressure.

We make our way up to the surgical floor and immediately, a bunch of people I don't recognize start lining up around my mom with questions.

"Hey! Back off, leeches," shouts the authoritative voice of one Dr. Miranda Bailey. A few of the younger residents scatter.

"Bailey!" I shriek, before bear-hugging her shorter body. It's fun because she hates it.

"Julia Grey Shepherd," she starts after removing my arms from around her body. She looks me up and down. "You lookin' more and more like your mother every time I see you." After a pause, she adds, "Do yourself a favor and stay away from tequila."

"Huh?" Talk about non-sequitur. I love tequila, but I won't mention it.

"Just trust me." She looks over to the group still circling my mother. "What are you two doing here? I thought she was taking time off."

I roll my eyes. "Oh please, you of all people know what 'time off' means to surgeons. We're officially here to see people, though. Might sneak up to the gallery to watch my dad if he's in surgery."

"Yeah, he's in the OR. Yang and Stevens should be around here somewhere, though. Sloan's probably in his office." Her pager goes off and she checks it with a frown. "I have to run. Tell your mother to schedule dinner sometime."

"Later! Tell Tuck I said 'Hi!'," I yell as she rushes off. Her son is a few years older than me and seriously good-looking. And he's a pediatrician, which just makes him even hotter. He's also very, very taken, but hey, I can still admire.

I turn back to my mother, who's still having screens of charts and scans shoved in her face.

"Julia Grey Shepherd."

I don't know why everyone around here middle-names me like I've done something wrong. I turn around with a big grin on my face, though, and receive a bear-hug of my own from Uncle Mark. "Marky!"

He rolls his eyes at that. I (not so) secretly love to annoy. If only he knew what my friends call him. Actually, he'd probably love being called "Silver Fox", so I'll keep that one in my head.

"I heard you were down here so I had to see for myself. Where's your brother?"

"Sleeping. Dad took him fishing this morning."

"Ah, yeah. That kid sleeps like your mom."

I raise an eyebrow at that. "How do _you_ know how my mom sleeps?"

He pauses, then winks and my jaw drops.

He laughs at my expression. "Whoa, relax. We spend a lot of time inside these walls... I know how everyone sleeps. Your Aunt Izzie drools."

"Oh please, you know how people sleep because you've slept with all of them. I've heard stories," I say, with my arms crossed. When I tell Izzie what Mark said about her, I'm sure she'll tell me more of his dirty little secrets.

"Hey, let's not dig up the past. I'm a one-woman man now." I was the flower girl at his wedding to Samantha, a corporate lawyer that he met on one of his sojourns to New York. They had a long-distance relationshipish thing for a year before she was hospitalized for stress and Mark went over there to drag her out to Seattle for good. "And I _never_ slept with your mother, even when they were broken up. Your dad would've had my balls."

That piques my interest. "What do you mean by 'when they were broken up'?"

"Uhh, yeah." He rubs the back of his neck, which I know is a nervous habit of his. "It was a lifetime ago. Don't worry about it. And don't ask your parents."

"I'm twenty-one fucking years old. I think I'm mature enough to hear about this kind of stuff." Of course, flailing my arms around and stomping my feet like I am right now probably isn't making my point any clearer.

"It's not that... it's just..."

"Touchy?" I supply. Like a hundred other subjects?

He nods and ruffles my hair. "Yeah. Look kiddo, I have to run. Tell Chase I plan on taking him out for some guy bonding time."

I sigh. "Yeah, see you soon, Uncle Mark."

The main reason that I rarely came home in the past four years is that it's like mentally reverting to childhood. Everyone forgets that I (and to a lesser extent, Chase) have been living in New York, completely self-sufficient. Well, not _completely, _because mom and dad paid for everything, but we took care of our own health and well-being, time management and all that. Actually, I had to take care of Chase's health and well-being sometimes, but I think we did a damn good job. Still, whenever I come back here I feel like I'm a child with no idea where my place in the world is.

I scan the room for my mom without success. Apparently, she's taken off without me. With another sigh, I walk over to the surgical board. My dad's doing a corpus callosotomy in OR3.

The trip up to the galleries is a familiar one. I ignore the door that says "Authorized Personnel Only" and push my way into the room.

I get more than a few strange looks from the residents who didn't see me grow up around here. I recognize a couple attendings though, and the entire room turns to face me when I hear my full name for the third time today.

"Hey, Aunt Cris," I say sheepishly, before making my way to the seat she's cleared for me.

"What are you doing here? Where's your mom?"

I look down into the operating room. Dad's concentrating hard on a partially exposed brain so he doesn't notice the movement above. "I don't know, off do to a consult, I'm guessing."

"She owes me fifty bucks. I knew she wouldn't last a week." My Seattle family bets on everything, including who would be the first out of me and Chase to bring a boy or girl home to meet the parents. That still hasn't happened, mostly because anytime we had anyone over in high school, they were gone before my parents got home.

"Where's Aunt Izzie?"

"She's working on something. Who knows, who cares." Cristina and Izzie have a funny relationship. Apparently, they were friends, then not friends, then actual enemies before their research year when they got together and made some impressive discoveries. They decided they were better off working together than not, but their personalities are polar opposites and tend to clash so they need lots of time apart.

My phone rings and I rifle through my purse, looking for my ear piece. I put it on, and then flip open the video screen.

"Sorry, Jules, I had to do a quick consult," mom starts.

Cristina leans over, pulls the phone towards her and waves at it. "Tell your mom she owes me fifty bucks," she whispers in my other ear.

Before I get the chance, mom speaks again. "Yeah, yeah, tell Cristina she'll get her money. Are you watching your dad's surgery? I can get some breakfast from across the street and we can eat in the gallery."

I've spent most of my life around here, so eating an omelette while watching my dad cut open someone's brain isn't weird to me. "Yeah, sure." I ask Cristina if she wants anything. "And Aunt Cris wants a chocolate chip muffin."

Twenty minutes later, my mom joins us in the gallery. As though he has some kind of Meredith Grey radar, dad finally looks up and smiles at her under his mask (I can tell). I give him a wave and he winks at me (because he can't exactly wave back) before focusing his attention on his surgery again.

"Hey Mer, are you doing the surgery you consulted on? The pancreatic cancer case, right?"

"Yeah, it was. And Dr. Richardson can handle it."

Cristina looks shocked. "But it's the perfect opportunity to flex your muscles with that laparoscopic technique you've been working on. Richardson can't come close to that."

I keep my expression neutral because I know it's stupid to get pissed off about my mom backtracking on spending time with me. Being with my mom is a life-or-death situation to these people and I'll be here all summer.

She surprises me, though. "I'm taking time off, Cristina. That means no operating."

I don't stray from my well-practiced neutral face, but inner-me is jumping around excitedly.

Cristina shrugs. "Suit yourself. So, Miss Harvard... you kicked your brother's ass."

I guess that's my cue to join the conversation. "Yeah, I scored seven points higher on the MCAT." I love Chase, but I'm honestly really proud of myself. Still, it's going to be weird, being apart from him for the first time in our lives, but we'll be two hour drive or a phone call away.

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with Dartmouth," mom says defensively.

"No, but you don't go to Dartmouth when you can go to Harvard. Mind you, I didn't even apply there, but I would have gotten in if I did."

My mom shakes her head. "I didn't apply there either."

"Why not?" I ask.

"I didn't want to stay in Boston and I really liked the atmosphere at Dartmouth when I did my undergrad."

"I wanted to stay on the West Coast, but there was a specific professor I wanted to learn from at Stanford," Cristina adds.

My mom giggles and Cristina elbows her, but as usual, they don't elaborate.

Cristina gets paged and shoves the rest of her muffin in her mouth before mumbling something about getting together later. Mom and I finish our food while dad finishes his surgery and when he's done, he gets my mom's attention and points outside the OR.

Dad walks straight to my mom when he comes out of the scrub room and wraps his arms around her, giving her a quick kiss without acknowledging that I exist. This is something that happens sometimes, when they get a bit lost in each other. It's both sweet and annoying, depending on what kind of mood I'm in.

"Are you staying for that pancreatic cancer surgery?" he asks her.

"No, I told Julia I'd spend the day with her."

"But this is perfect for your-"

She stops him with a finger on his lips. "I am taking our daughter shopping and that's final," she says playfully. "I'm not going to be that person."

"You're not your mom."

Hey, look, more stuff they won't tell me about. Mom gives him a stern look before stepping out of his arms and dad finally notices me.

"Hi daddy!" I'm still in the good mood from earlier.

"Hey Junebug. Try not to buy out the whole mall, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," I say before giving him a quick hug.

"So I'll see you girls at home. I'll try to make it back for seven-ish."

"Okay, we'll take care of dinner." Mom gives dad another quick kiss. "Seeya."

"Bye daddy!" Like I said, I seriously regress when I come home.

* * *

I'm not going to lie, I love the attention I get when I drive the Porsche, even if I'm with my mom. We make a few stops in the city before finally pulling into the long driveway on our property with eight shopping bags in the back. It's not all for me – mom bought stuff too.

She says something about some reading she has to do and goes up to her study so I look around for Chase. I find him outside, on the back porch swing with his laptop.

"Hey loser," I say by way of greeting. "We have to unload the truck and return it."

He doesn't look up. "This _loser_ already unloaded the truck and was just waiting for you to get home so you could come with me."

I stick my tongue out at him. It doesn't matter that he isn't looking, he'll know. "Thanks, loser. I'll go tell mom."

I'm hoping she'll let me take the Porsche again, but I'm guessing it's pretty unlikely. I knock on the slightly open door and she looks up from the journal she's reading.

"Chase and I are going to go return the truck. Should we grab dinner, too?"

"Sure, get whatever you want. And no, you can't take the Porsche. The Volvo has a food warmer in the trunk."

"And that makes it _so_ cool," I say sarcastically.

She waves dismissively before returning her attention to the journal. "You know where the keys are."

In the car on the way home from the city – we picked up Mexican food and a salad for dad – I decide to bring up what's on my mind. "Chase, have you noticed that mom and dad don't really tell us anything?"

He taps his hands on the steering wheel. "Uh... I guess. Well, we don't really know much about anything we weren't there to experience ourselves."

"Exactly. What are they hiding?"

"What makes you think they're hiding anything?" He's actually bewildered.

"Look, Uncle Mark mentioned something about mom and dad breaking up. They never told us about that. They just said they met when they started working at Seattle Grace and then mom had her fellowship and then she came back and they got married."

He throws his hands up, letting go of the wheel, but the auto-drive kicks in. "Oh my god, who cares?"

"How can you not be curious? And then when I wanted a sister when I was a kid, they got all weird."

"Well did you really think they were going to discuss fertility issues with a five-year old?"

"But then we wanted a dog, and they got all weird about that, too."

"Yeah, I remember that. Whatever, they would tell us if it was important. Don't be so nosy." He puts his hands back on the steering wheel and pays attention to driving again, effectively ending the conversation.

I can't believe he doesn't care. I drop it, though, because it's not worth fighting over right now.

I bring the food into the house and leave it in the oven on warm before joining Chase in the den. We get through a whole episode of some nineties sitcom before I hear the front door.

I pull my brother up from the overstuffed couch and go to meet my dad in the foyer. The sight that greets me is not what I expected.

He's angry. Angrier than I've ever seen him before, with his hands clenched in fists at his sides and shoulders squared towards mom, who's at the top of the stairs. I glance back at Chase, who looks as scared as I feel.

They either haven't noticed us or aren't willing to break their stares. Finally, dad opens his mouth. His voice is cold and forceful.

"How long have you known?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note**: I split this chapter up in two so that I could get this part up today. I felt guilty about leaving everyone hanging! Don't expect all the updates to be this fast, though. I only have the story mapped out firmly to a certain point and then it'll slow down a bit.

I have not personally dealt with the issue at hand in this story, but I think I did about as much research on it as they would've on the show. Also, I'd like to remind everyone that this takes place three decades into the future, and I assume there have been some medical advances made in that time.

Thanks again for reading!

* * *

_"How long have you known?"_

I whip my head around to look at mom, as though dad had just served an imaginary tennis ball up the stairs.

"I don't," she says simply.

I turn back to dad. "Goddamnit, Meredith," he yells. "How long have you fucking suspected, then?"

She takes two steps down. "A week."

My dad's stare doesn't weaken and if anything, his fists get tighter.

She takes another two steps. "A month."

He walks to the bottom of the staircase and looks up at her with pleading eyes.

Mom meets him on the first step so that they stand at eye-level to each other. "A couple months," she says finally, running her hands across dad's jawline.

He growls and turns away. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" Shit. I didn't mean to say it out loud but they both turn to me, surprised. I guess they hadn't noticed us come in, after all.

Dad takes a deep breath. "Chase, Julia, can you go out back or something? I need a few minutes with your mother."

Chase takes a step back and tugs on my arm but I stand my ground. "No. We're not kids anymore, dad. Whatever this is about, we're old enough to hear it. We deserve to hear it," I say with a firm voice.

Dad opens his mouth to argue, but mom speaks first. "You can stay," she says quietly. Dad drops his gaze and clasps his hands in front of him.

Nobody says anything, though. I can hear Chase breathing hard behind me, and mom and dad are both looking at the floor.

"So... will you tell us what's going on?" I ask, breaking the silence.

Dad looks up, then, and glances first at mom before looking at me and Chase. "Your mother," he starts, but his voice gets caught in his throat. He swallows and starts again. "Your mother is exhibiting symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer's disease."

And just like that, the world as I know it is destroyed. My legs must have given out because I can feel my brother's arms around me, setting me down gently on the floor. He kneels down beside me and looks up at my dad.

"Just symptoms? So it could be something else, like a tumor or thyroid problems? Because then you could operate and it would be fine. And even if it's Alzheimer's... I mean, there's no cure, but there are treatments, right? It's not that bad... right?" Chase Shepherd, the rambling optimist.

"It's most likely Familial Alzheimer's. Her mother had it." Dad's voice is in full doctor-mode. "And yes, there are treatments but they aren't a hundred percent and they work best when they're started at the first signs of the disease." He turns to glare at mom again. "Why didn't you _tell me_?"

Mom just shakes her head. Her shoulders are hunched and I've never seen her look smaller.

Dad paces away from her, back and forth across the hall. "God, this is just fantastic. The best neurosurgeon on the West Coast missed signs of a serious neurodegenerative disease on his own wife for _months_."

I can't fight the tears anymore. I can't help it. I wish I was eight years old again and I didn't understand everything as well as I do now. I wish I didn't want to be a doctor, so that I wouldn't have to ask my next question. "Does that mean Chase and I might have the defective gene? There's a fifty-fifty chance that we have it, right?"

Dad's features lose their hard edge. "No, Junebug. You don't. Your mom and I made sure of that."

"H-how? Oh my god, don't tell me we're adopted." It's stupid, I know we can't be adopted. We look just like mom and dad.

"No, no, you're not adopted. We..." He stops, runs a hand through his thick white hair and leans against the wall closest to me and Chase. "It's not that unusual now, but you two were conceived using IVF for the specific purpose of preimplantation genetic diagnosis. It was controversial back then, but your mom didn't want to risk passing on the gene. She didn't want to know if she had it, but she wanted to make sure you didn't get it."

"Oh..." This is all just too much to handle. I want to turn the clock back to ten minutes ago when I was blissfully ignorant about everything.

Suddenly, Chase stands up. "You two are fucking unbelievable! Dad, you're a neurosurgeon, not a neurologist. You cut, you don't diagnose this shit. And besides, you work a whole fucking lot so of course you didn't notice. And you," he points to me. "Who the fuck cares if we have the gene? It'll probably be decades before it manifests and they'll have better treatments and maybe even a cure by then. The only thing that matters right now is that _mom is sick_, so shut the fuck up! And we don't even know for sure if she has it. We're jumping to conclusions and scaring the shit out of her."

We all fall quiet again, with only the sound of our breathing filling the room. I bury my face in my hands. Chase is right, completely right. I feel like such an ass.

And because nothing tonight is expected, the sound that breaks the silence is my mother's laughter. She laughs heartily and I'm scared shitless because, oh my god, what if she's losing her mind right now? We all turn to look at her and watch her until she quiets down because we don't know what else to do. Even dad is completely stunned.

"Anger, denial, fear, frustration, sadness and guilt... I went through it all myself a long time ago. And not so long ago, I guess. It's a lot to take coming from all directions, though," she says, with a lighter tone of voice than the situation really calls for.

Now that I think about it, I realize she's been 'off' since we've been home. There have been signs and I totally missed them. And before I left New York, there were some occasions where she asked me things more than once over email but I figured she was busy with work so she wasn't paying that much attention, even though that had never been an issue before.

Taking time off from work, letting me drive the Porsche, not doing that surgery today... she had ulterior motives for all of it. I lay my head down on my knees. I think I'm going to be sick.

Chase walks over to mom and leads her down the last step. He puts his arm around her waist and guides her a nearby couch like she's some fragile old person. I want to scream at him to let her be. She's our young, strong mom; she's not some ninety-year-old grandmother. I join them in the living room, but dad doesn't make a move.

"What do you know?" Chase asks her, soothingly.

"I know that today is a 'good' day, so I can tell you all of this." She sighs. "A few different interns told me I was repeating orders, but I was hoping it was just stress. I didn't want to think it was anything else. I was in the middle of writing a paper and when I proofread it a few days later, I realized that I wrote out full sections without having any recollection of doing it. I started leaving myself notes with the date and time, and sometimes I would come back and find one and have no memory of writing it. It didn't start affecting my fine motor abilities until very recently. That, coinciding with you two coming home, is why I took time off from the hospital."

Chase nods and then gathers mom up in his arms. I sit down and get in the hug. Dad is noticeably absent, so I look up at him. He's still up against the wall, staring at an invisible spot on the tiled floor.

I wonder what his deal is. "Dad?"

He startles a bit and meets my eyes for a brief second before looking away. "I can't do this right now," he says, before turning and walking out the front door without stopping.

"Shit, I'll go after him. You stay with mom." Chase gets up, throws on a pair of shoes and runs out the door after him. How my brother is managing to be the most rational, logical person in this situation is baffling. Dad should be the leader here, but he's just being an ass.

I snuggle against mom on the couch and try the whole rational logic thing. "Tomorrow, we'll take you to the best Alzheimer's specialist we can find. Dad must have some pull with that. We'll get you diagnosed for sure so that we can figure out our treatment options."

I feel her nod against me. "I'm sorry, Jules. I didn't want you all to find out like this. I don't know how I wanted you to find out, but definitely not like this."

"It's okay, mommy." I haven't called her that since my age was a single digit. I don't really know why, since calling dad 'daddy' is so easy to me. "How did your mom tell you?"

"I was in Amsterdam." That's weird. I don't know if she actually meant to say that or not, but I let her continue before embarrassing her by checking. "She wanted me to go to med school and make something of myself but I didn't even know who _I_ was so I emptied out my trust fund and took off to Europe to try to 'find myself'."

The confession makes me see her in a whole new light. I always figured she had it together from the start and knowing she wasn't always perfect makes me feel strangely appreciative.

She continues. "I called every now and then to check in out of some feeling of responsibility towards her even though I was technically running away. The fourth time I called, two months after I landed in London and just hours after smoking a large amount of cannabis in a Dutch coffee shop, my mother told me in her best professional voice that she'd just been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's and that she needed me to come home immediately." Mom chuckles, but it's humorless. "I was so high, and I had no idea how to process what she'd just told me. I just said 'shit' and hung up. I guess I had it together enough to clean myself up and get a cab to the airport, though. Less than a day later, I was home."

I try to imagine my mother, the famed Dr. Meredith Grey, high, but it just doesn't compute.

"The entire time on the plane, I just thought, she's not even fifty years old. And I couldn't build up any more of a family history because her parents died when she was eighteen so I started to worry about it being genetic, and then ending up with it and having my life end at fifty, too. As if things hadn't been shitty enough for me already."

I want to ask her to elaborate, but this is her story to tell. I'll ask her some other time, and I _know_ there will be other times. There has to be. And I'll ask her everything.

"I decided then that I was going to med school – partially to please my mom while she could still be conscious of it, but also because it was something I could invest myself in. If my time was going to be limited, then I thought I should make something of it, you know?" I nod my agreement. "And I thought I'd just dive into the books and be the best. Just me. No relationships or responsibilities to anyone else."

I giggle a bit at that. "That worked out well for you."

She nods again. "I blame your dad. He made me want things."

"Are you ever going to tell me that story?"

"Not without him to tell his side. It's... not great for either of us. We said and did a lot of things we weren't proud of." She sits up and smiles at me. "But it turned out pretty well in the end."

There's a feeling like a vise on my heart and I tear up again. "I don't think I can take it if anything happens to you."

She leans back on the couch and pulls me with her. She strokes my hair like she did when I was a child but doesn't say anything. She's a doctor. She knows the deal and doesn't want to lie and say it'll be okay when she doesn't know the truth.

I wish she would say it anyway.

We sit in companionable silence for a few more minutes before I start to wonder where Chase and dad are. "What's wrong with dad?"

Mom sighs. "He doesn't deal with things like this very well. He doesn't like it when something is out of his control."

"But he should be here," I say, pouting like a toddler.

"Yeah, he should. It's okay, Jules. He'll come back. He always does, eventually."

The heaviness of her statement leads me to believe that there's more to it, but there's always another day.

I have to believe there will be.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note**: I'm really sorry for generally not responding to individual feedback this time around. Every time I've tried, I've typed something and realized that I spoiled my own story so then I'd erase it all. Nevertheless, I read and appreciate every comment I get, and some of them have even helped me shape the story, so thanks!

Also, I've gone back and changed Meredith's age to 58 (first chapter) and Julia and Chase's age to 21 (second chapter) to make the timing of it all slightly more plausible. In my mind, Meredith was 28-29 when she started her internship, 35-36 when she finished her fellowship and 37 when she gave birth. Chase and Julia skipped a grade somewhere along the way allowing them to graduate college at 21.

* * *

After a few more minutes on the couch, the adrenaline shock from the evening's revelation dies down, allowing my body to assess its wants and needs again.

"Do you want to eat something, mom?"

She stifles a yawn before responding, "Sure."

I dish out the enchiladas on the breakfast table and multi-task by doing some serious contemplation while I chew and swallow. Mom isn't quite as talented in that area – I can tell she's thinking but she mostly hasn't touched her meal.

"What did dad mean when he said you wanted to make sure we didn't have it without finding out for yourself?" I ask, when the snowball of a question rolling around my mind becomes a giant snow boulder.

She takes a bite before responding. Stalling for time, perhaps. "It means that we went through standard IVF procedure but told them we wanted to make sure that our children didn't have any of the mutated genes that cause Familial Alzheimer's. You could only get it if I had it, but I didn't want to know if I had it. They were legally bound by contract not to tell me one way or another."

My mouth-brain filter doesn't have time to catch my next question. "Why the hell not? You could have started treatment so much earlier." I don't want to judge, I really don't, but I just can't wrap my head around it.

She sighs deeply. "I don't expect you to understand. I don't expect anyone to understand. Your dad and I have gotten into countless arguments about it over the years." She fidgets with her food and takes a sip of water before going on. "I think..." False start. "I was..." Again. I've never seen her speak without confidence. I don't know if it's the subject matter or a byproduct of the disease that's crawling through her brain. I'm afraid to speculate. "If I wasn't so happy, if I wasn't so content with my life, I would have gone for genetic testing myself. And I know that's the most backwards logic ever, but everything in my life had finally fallen into place. I didn't want to have a dark cerebellum-shaped cloud hanging over my head, just ready to dump all over everything. I wanted to be able to enjoy things like anyone else without having to worry about the potential ticking clock in my head. The treatments aren't a guarantee. I just didn't want to know."

If it were anyone else, I think I would understand. But it's my mother and I just can't get perspective. I want her to live forever. I want her to be there at my future wedding and to hold my future children and just _be there_. Why wouldn't she have taken the best course of treatment right off the bat? Preventative therapies. She's a fucking doctor, for God's sake.

From the corner of my eye, I can see her head tilt upwards. She's looking at me, but I can't make eye contact. If she looks at me, she'll know I'm mad and I don't want to be mad at her. I just can't believe the irrationality of her actions. I know I'm being selfish; this isn't about me. But she was being selfish, too, when she declined to do everything so that she could live in denial.

She looks back down to her plate. "Julia, I know it's hard. I know you think I'm selfish, but... If I knew for a fact that I was going to have early-onset Alzheimer's, I wasn't going to be able to go through with it. Starting a family, I mean. If I started having symptoms when my mom did, you two would have just been teenagers. If I knew for a fact that I was going to have it, I didn't want to put you through it. Call it reckless and stupid, and really, I do, but I wanted to hope. I was never a hopeful person but, you know, my life had finally stopped sucking at that point so I was optimistic. And when I passed fifty-five, I started to think that I didn't have the gene. I lucked out. I should have known... I've never been a lucky person," she finishes with an ironic smile.

My anger abates and I reach across the table to grasp her hand. "You don't know for sure. And even if it is..." I swallow down the sobs that are waiting for me to break again. "We'll get through it together, as a family."

I've never seen my mom look so vulnerable. She suddenly looks so young, like all the lines have disappeared and her eyes are wide but full of tears. She's always been so strong and it's hard to reconcile the person sitting in front of me now with the woman I've known my whole life. I know that feeling might become familiar, but I push that thought aside. I have to hope, like she did.

We finish our meals without saying much else and mom excuses herself to go to bed. The emotional impact of the evening has taken its toll and I feel incredibly sluggish as well, but I find myself flipping through cable news shows instead of going to sleep. Watching the world fall to shit helps me remember that I'm extremely fortunate. I have a loving family, a roof over my head, food and water, access to the nation's best health care and education... my life is good. Great. This is just a thing, and it sucks, but I'm in better shape than billions of others.

I watch the minutes tick by on the bottom right corner of the television screen. I logged into our family's nav system earlier and saw that they took the Land Rover, but it hasn't left the island so Chase and dad must be coming home soon. There isn't much that's open late out here.

Just over an hour later, I hear thumping followed by a lot of cursing near the front of the house. I open the door to find Chase with his arms around our limp spaghetti-like father. He's drunk. Drunker than drunk This is the first time I've ever seen him drunk. Chase looks up at me with desperation and I help drag dad inside and settle him on the nearest couch.

"What the hell happened?" I ask my brother, following him into the kitchen.

He pours himself a glass of water and gulps down half before speaking. "I chased after dad and got into the car, like, a half second before he put it in reverse. He didn't tell me to leave. He didn't say anything at all until after we stopped at the liquor store. He bought an expensive bottle of scotch, drove out to the water and got out. We just sat on the beach for an hour while he drank back half the freaking bottle, Jules. I've never seen him like this." He runs a hand through his hair in a way that reminds me of the passed-out man in the living room. "He started talking a bit. He said he thought she was over pulling shit like this. He said he couldn't lose her again. Fought too hard to lose her again. I didn't ask him what he meant."

I cross my arms over my chest. "I don't care what he meant. Nothing could excuse his actions. He just _left_."

"Jules, you didn't see what I saw. He's really broken up about this. He's not thinking straight at all. After the beach, he tried to drive again but the car wouldn't start because of his BAC. I had to fight him out of the driver's seat. I took him to that seedy diner near the marina and forced him to eat something to sop up the alcohol in his stomach. We sat there for forever, not saying anything. He looked so... tortured. I've never seen him look like anything but this totally strong guy, but he was destroyed."

I start to feel a little sorry for my dad. He's got to be feeling guilty about not noticing earlier and plus he completely fucking worships the ground mom walks on. But he still should have stayed.

"Do you have any anti-hangover pills?" Chase asks.

I have them in my bag upstairs but I don't know if I want to give them to dad. He deserves to suffer a little. I shake my head in response.

"Come on, Jules, I know you have them. We had to take some after we stopped in Montreal. I know you want dad to feel like shit tomorrow, but he's going to feel like shit with or without the hangover and we need him functional."

Damnit, why is my brother so _right_ today? I hate his rationality right now. "Fine, I'll go get them."

I return to the living room couch with a glass of water and a couple of pills. "Dad?" He grumbles his response. "Dad, I need you to get up and take these pills." He doesn't move.

Fine, if he wants to be like that. I tip the glass of water over his head, just slightly. He jumps up and runs his hands over the water on his face. "Dad, take this. They'll take care of your hangover."

He looks at me as though he's trying to remember who I am before reaching his hands out and taking the proffered water and pills. He swallows them down and lies back on the couch, losing consciousness again quickly.

"How's mom?" Chase asks when I return to the kitchen.

"She went to bed earlier. Rough night for everyone, I guess." I recap for him all the things mom told me tonight. "Remember what I said in the car this afternoon?"

"Yeah."

"I kind of wish we were back to not knowing anything." I can't fight back the odd combination of tears and laughter flowing from somewhere inside me.

Chase pulls me into a brotherly hug. "It'll be okay," he says, giving me the reassurance that mom wouldn't earlier. I nod into his shoulder, wiping my eyes and nose on his shirt without a second thought. He can deal. He walks me up to my room before retiring to his and I give into my exhaustion, falling into a fitful, restless sleep.

* * *

The phone is ringing. It's 7:30 and the phone is ringing. I stumble around my room before remembering that I don't have one up here. Everyone else must still be down for the count, which is expected from Chase because he wouldn't wake up in a tornado, but mom and dad are used to pagers and phones waking them up all hours of the night.

I rush down the stairs and grab the phone from the kitchen but it's too late. I hit "Play" when the message signal pops up and watch as Bailey's stern face appears. "You're late, Dr. Shepherd. I need to ask you something. Call me immediately when you get this."

I bring the videophone over to my dad, who's still passed out (quite uncomfortably, it appears) on the couch. I know I should just bring the other phone, but I think Bailey needs to see for herself what we're dealing with here.

"Dad, it's time to wake up," I say softly, reaching out to shake him a little. "You have to call the hospital. Talk to Bailey. Tell them you won't be in today. Or for a while."

"Whuh," is his response. I give him a few more seconds to get lucid.

"Bailey called, dad. You're late for work but it doesn't matter because you're not going to work. You have to call her back."

He jumps up then. "What time is it?" I tell him. "Shit."

I dial SGH and punch in Bailey's extension at the switchboard. Her face pops up on the screen again.

"You look like crap." Bailey's not very sensitive when it comes to my dad. Or people who aren't children, in general.

"Thanks," he responds, his voice scratchy and sleep-filled. "I had a rough night."

She softens a bit at that. "So she told you."

I watch as dad's body becomes instantly more alert. The anger from last night returns. "You knew?!"

"I worked alongside her every single day, of course I knew."

"Why the fuck didn't you tell me?!" Dad yells.

"She didn't say anything; I just figured it out myself. I watched over her and made sure she didn't make any mistakes that jeopardized a patient's health. If it began to affect her work, I would have told you, but she left before it became an issue. It wasn't my business to tell you otherwise." Bailey is incredibly diplomatic. She leads with both her mind and heart in the right place.

Dad rubs his hands over his face. He knows she's right as much as I do.

"I'm not coming in today. I'm not coming tomorrow. I don't know when I'm coming in next, so I'm going to make arrangements for you to be interim Chief. Is that okay with you?"

"Yessir," she responds. "What are you going to do?"

"I know a guy at the Alzheimer's center at UCSD. I'll take her there."

"Good. Take care of her, Derek." The last time I recall her using dad's his first name was when Chase cracked his head on the deck by the lake. "Call me back when you're done talking to administration so you can tell me what you want me to do."

"Bailey," he says before she hangs up. "Don't tell anyone yet. Please."

Bailey's face molds into disbelief. "Do I look like a gossip to you, Shepherd?" she says, before signing off.

I examine my dad on the couch. He looks so tired and... old. He might have a head full of white hair but he's always had a lot of energy. It scares me to see him like this.

He looks up at me with a bit of a smile and I return it with my own. I know he's sorry for last night.

"Do you need anything, daddy?"

"Can you get me some coffee?" he asks, with a charming smile that he uses on people at the hospital to get them to do things for him.

"Sure. And you should shower... you smell like the dirtiest club in Manhattan. No. Long Island."

He grimaces at that, and I head off to do my assigned task. I'm surprised when I hear the sound of water flow coming from the basement and not upstairs. I guess he didn't want to wake mom up, or he's just not ready to see her. I hope it's the former, because I was just starting to forgive him for being a jerk last night.

I leave a steaming mug of coffee on the counter before taking another mug up to my mom's room.

I knock on the door out of habit, even though I know dad isn't in there so there's no risk of being visually traumatized (again). I hear a mumble from inside so I take that as a positive response.

Mom sits up in bed with her hair kind of everywhere. "What's wrong, Jules?" she asks, her voice light as though nothing big happened recently. "Was that the phone I heard a few minutes ago? I think there was a phone ringing in my dream." She releases a huge yawn. "I can't remember the last time I slept that deeply."

Shit. Shit shit shit fuck shit. She doesn't remember. "Oh, it was a wrong number," I lie. "I just made some coffee so I thought you'd want some," I say, hopefully keeping the distress off my face.

"Oh, thanks. It's still a little early, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I just couldn't fall back asleep." I walk over and place the mug on her nightstand. "Stay in bed, I'll come bring breakfast up later."

She laughs lightly. "Next thing I know, you'll be telling me that breakfast will consist of actual food."

I force a giggle. "I'll be back in a bit, mom." I walk out of the room and close the door behind me. Shit shit shit fuck balls. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. Chase, Chase will know what to do.

I barge into his room and shake him awake. "What the _fuck_?" he grumbles.

"Chase, she doesn't remember! She doesn't remember last night!" I whisper-scream, trying not to alert mom.

He bolts out of bed. "Shit. Where's dad?"

"He's downstairs making phone calls. He's taking leave from the hospital. He told Bailey he's taking mom to San Diego."

"Have you told him?" I shake my head vigorously. "Let's go tell him."

We race down the stairs and wait outside the room while dad finishes a call.

"Dad!" we whisper-scream the second he hangs up.

"Uh, yes?"

"Mom doesn't remember!" I start.

"Last night!" Chase finishes.

Dad's face drops. He freezes for a second, eyes darting between me and Chase before he runs upstairs into the master bedroom. Chase and I follow, but stop outside the door when we see dad holding mom in bed.

"Derek, what are you still doing here?" I hear mom ask.

"I'm not going to work today. Or tomorrow. Or any day until..."

Movement and rustling. "What's going on, Derek? Seriously?"

Dad doesn't say anything that we can hear, if he says anything at all.

"Oh. Oh. Oh no. No no no no no." Mom's babbling becomes muffled amid more rustling. I peek into the room to find dad sitting up with his arms cradling mom, who's sobbing into his lap.

I pull Chase in with me and we crawl onto their bed together to share a big family embrace.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note**: Sorry for the delay, but this chapter was really hard to write for no particular reason and I already know that next chapter is going to be a monster. Anyhow, I'd like to remind everyone that I know as much about medicine as TV and Wikipedia have taught me, and that this takes place in some fictional future.

* * *

When mom's sobs dissipate into another emotionally exhausted sleep – I suspect that the effort she expended to keep her condition secret over the past few months has caught up to her – dad whispers to Chase and I to make travel arrangements.

"Book two tickets on a flight to San Diego that leaves sometime later today, get me a car, and a hotel room near the university," he says.

I shake my head. "We're coming with you. It's not like you can't afford it." Really, I just don't necessarily trust him to not run off again. Mom still doesn't know that he ran off last night. She doesn't know anything about last night. The thought makes me sick to my stomach.

"Fine," he agrees softly. It's a stark contrast, his behavior right now and his actions last night. He's not willing to leave her side for a few minutes to book airline tickets but he was okay with running out on her and getting piss-ass drunk yesterday.

My brother and I set off to do dad's bidding, booking four tickets to San Diego on a flight that leaves in the afternoon, a suite and an extra room at the Hilton, and a luxury SUV for dad to drive when we get there. We bathe, pack and feed ourselves like good little children, but we're mostly keeping ourselves busy so we can stop thinking about everything.

We've resorted to practicing musical instruments we haven't touched since high school when I start to hear them come down the stairs. Dad holds two stuffed duffel bags in one hand while the other leads mom down the stairs. After dad asks us if we're ready to go, no other words are spoken. I don't know what to say to mom, and making simple small talk seems almost insensitive unless she starts it first.

I'm a talker. I like to talk. So when the plane lands in San Diego and I haven't had a conversation in what feels like days (or hours, whatever), I almost want to burst, but then I'd say something inappropriate, I'm sure, and it won't make things better. As an alternative, I shove yet another piece of gum in my mouth. I'm probably chewing as gracefully as a cow right now, but I need the distraction.

We disembark from the plane, turning our phones on as we follow the crowd through the airport. One at a time, our phones chime or beep or sing its message notification tone. I look down at my own phone: nine new messages, in various forms. Six are from friends that I forgot I'd made plans with, and the other three are from Aunt Izzie, Aunt Cristina and Uncle Mark. I guess they figured out that something was up.

From the looks on my parents' faces, I'm guessing their phones say something similar. Mom chews her lip nervously and dad wraps an arm around her, brushes her hair back from her forehead and kisses her there.

"What do you want to tell them?" he asks.

She shakes her head, rubbing her nose against his chest as she does so. "I don't want them to know yet. We don't even know for sure, and, yeah. I don't want them to know right now."

He nods and releases her to type a message on his phone. "I'll tell them we're taking an impromptu family vacation. I won't say where. I'm sure it won't satisfy them, but at least they'll know we're safe."

"What should we tell our friends?" I whisper to my brother.

"Um, just tell them our parents surprised us with a trip to California."

"Like they'd believe that!" Our friends have known Chase and I for a long time, so they know that mom and dad rarely take vacations, and when they do, it's across an ocean somewhere. Not freaking California.

"Whatever. We can tell them more later if we decide to."

"Yeah, okay." We divide up our friends and type quick messages to each of them. I look back up to find dad with his arms around mom again, almost as though he's protecting her against the world. They're off in their own little universe while the commotion of the airport buzzes around them. She's going to be crushed if and when she finds out what happened last night. I don't think it's fair to not tell her. Dad doesn't get a free pass for last night just because mom's short-term memory is shot. It's not my place, though, so I'll leave it. Chase nudges me ahead and we follow the arrows to the car rental place ahead of our parents.

* * *

It's nearly 7pm by the time we've finished checking into the hotel. The concierge gives us the name of a nice but casual Italian restaurant (we're not really a fast-food family) and the nav system directs us there. When we sit down at the table, mom sets the tone for the evening. She asks Chase and I about our friends and what they're doing with their lives now. It's inane conversation but I'm grateful for it. I can almost forget that something happened last night; that something has been happening to mom for the past few months. Guilt chases that thought through my head. Mom couldn't remember last night if she tried, something _is_ happening to her and I should be grateful that I can remember, because she might not have that option in a few years.

Fuck, I can't think about that, either.

With my stomach full of butternut squash ravioli, I amble along with my family to the car. I'm a stress consumer; that is, when I'm stressed, I eat a lot and drink a lot (which isn't always a pretty combination). Drinking isn't really an option right now, so food is taking the place of both. I should probably hit the hotel gym when we get back.

Mom derails those plans, though, when she announces that she wants to go to the beach. Dad, never one to deny her anything on a normal occasion, doesn't question it. The car directs us to La Jolla Shores, where dad parks on the beach and mom slips her shoes off before getting out of the car the second it stops.

It's warmer here than it was in Seattle and the evening breeze off the water is comfortable. Calming. Dad catches up to mom, reaching for her hand and walking along together. Chase and I trade uncomfortable glances at the feeling of intruding on a private moment. Mom stops then and waits for us to catch up.

She drops dad's hand before speaking. "So, what exactly happened last night?"

I hold my breath and Chase somehow chokes on nothing. We turn to each other, using our 'special twin powers' to decide what our course of action should be.

Dad saves us the trouble, though. He turns away to look out at the water but speaks loudly enough to make up for it. "I figured it out on the drive home last night. I told you about that pancreatic cancer patient the day before and I thought you'd jump at the chance to try your new lap technique. You'd been waiting weeks for a case like that but you just walked away. And then I put it together with all the other little things I've noticed, but didn't really pay attention to. And I'm sorry about that, for not noticing earlier."

"You don't have to be sorry. We were busy and I was hiding it," mom says, with a shrug.

Something about her comment sets something off in dad, though. "Goddamnit, my being busy isn't an excuse for anything. Not after..." He looks over at me and my brother and stops talking. "I swore I wouldn't let it happen again."

"That was over thirty years, ago, and it has nothing to do with what's happening right now." I am _so_ lost, but I'm just an observer right now. No words from me. "So then what happened?" she asks.

Dad takes a deep breath and tells her the first part of the story, leaving out my stupid reaction and Chase's chastising.

"If I haven't said it already, I'm really sorry," she says to me and Chase. "I'm sorry you had to find out like that."

She has said it, but I don't point it out. "It's okay. We're not kids anymore, mom, you don't have to worry about stuff like this," I say. Chase nods his agreement beside me.

Tears spring to her eyes. "You'll always be kids to me," she whispers, reminiscent of what she said when we first stepped into the house.

The story isn't over yet, though, and I glare at dad. I don't want to be the one to tell her what happened next, but she deserves to know the truth. He clears his throat. "Uh," he starts. Mom turns her attention back to him. "I left. After. Chase followed me, Julia stayed with you. I was just... I couldn't deal with it, Meredith." He reaches out for her, but she turns away, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Where did you go?"

"I, uh." I glare some more, not that he's looking at me. "I went to the liquor store, bought a bottle of scotch, drove to the shore and drank it straight out of the bottle."

Mom turns to look at him then. "You _drank_?" she yells, disbelievingly.

"Yeah." Boy, did he ever.

"But you promised."

He nods. "I did."

She turns away again and walks down to the water, rolling her jeans up along the way. Dad sighs for the hundredth time in the past few minutes and runs both hands through his hair.

"What did you promise?" Chase asks, surprising even me. I was curious, but I was going to leave it.

With another sigh, dad begins to speak. "Before last night, the last time I'd tasted even a drop of scotch was over twenty-five years ago."

"Okay... why?" Chase prods.

"Thatcher was your mother's father. They didn't have a very good relationship... well, you could say they didn't have a relationship, but your mom still cared about him because he was still her father. Something happened to him that made him very angry and he started drinking a lot. He was an alcoholic."

"Is that why we've never met him?" I ask.

"No. You've never met him because he died before you were born. It was during your mom's research year, so I hadn't really seen her around." I add that piece of information to the puzzle containing Uncle Mark's comment about how they were broken up. "Thatcher had wrapped his car around a pole. He was DOA. Your mom came to see for herself, though, and to be there for Lexie."

I've met Aunt Lexie a few times. She's Harvard alumna and spent most of her life in Doctors Without Borders, which I think is really cool of her. I make a mental note to myself to get in contact with her again.

"I had back-to-back-to-back surgeries that day. There were enough car accidents involving sober people that day so Thatcher didn't stand much of a chance. At least he only hurt himself. Anyway, your mom and I hadn't really spoken in a while but I wanted to see her to make sure she was all right. I couldn't find her or her friends in the hospital so I went to the bar across the street. It was one of her favorite places to go. I walked in, and there she was, with ten shot glasses lined up in front of her. Seven of them were turned over."

I can't stop my gasp of surprise. That's kind of hardcore.

Dad chuckles. "Yeah, she could really hold her liquor. I was worried, though, because I thought she'd stopped using alcohol to drown her sorrows, and drinking to get over the death of an alcoholic didn't seem like the brightest idea. Her friends were there, but they weren't stopping her, and in my experience they tended to just let her do whatever she wanted and then held her hair back for her later. So, I sat down beside her, ordered a drink and asked her what we were drinking to." His eyes start glazing over a bit, like he's re-living the moment right now, and not standing here on the beach with us. "She said, 'This is the last night I'm ever going to drink so I might as well make it count. Let's drink to that,' which was the last thing I expected her to say and I felt, I don't know. Proud. I raised my glass and drank it back while she swallowed another shot of tequila."

So tequila was my mom's poison of choice. Bailey's comment from yesterday makes more sense now.

Dad continues his story. "I decided that she was going to need help, so I told her that I was going to stop drinking, too, in solidarity. She thought that was a stupid idea, but then I told her that when her friends were going out drinking, she could call me and we could go out to dinner or see a movie or something totally not involving alcohol. I didn't expect her to agree without a fight because we weren't really friends, but I was going to do it with or without her acknowledgment. So, we drank a lot that night. _A lot_. And a week later, she called me to ask me out to a movie," dad finishes with a smile. A particularly strong breeze takes him out of his reverie, though, and I can tell he's remembering where he is. He looks back out to where mom is standing, close enough to the water that the waves lap at her ankles. Without another word, he walks over to her and envelops her from behind. He whispers something in her ear and I catch her head nod. Chase and I turn away and get back in the car, letting them have their moment alone.

"It's weird, isn't it?" he asks as I shut the door beside me.

I know he's referring to the eye-opening story we just heard. "Yeah. Mom and dad led very different lives before we came along, which I guess isn't that shocking if you think about it. I mean, we got in all kinds of trouble in college but I doubt I'll be telling my future kids about almost getting thrown in jail overnight for public drunkenness. Not my proudest moment, you know?"

Chase rolls his eyes. "I would tell my kids, if I ever had any. Why not? 'Daddy did some stupid things when he was young,' what's the big deal?"

"Depends if you're raising a child or a drinking buddy," I spit back. "Look, we left for college when we were seventeen and barely came home. And this stuff isn't exactly dinner conversation. They just never really had the opportunity to tell us this stuff since we've been old enough to hear it."

"Yeah, I guess I wouldn't tell an eight-year-old about my epic parties. And I definitely wouldn't tell a teenager, because they'd think I was giving permission to throw epic parties, and that's not happening under my roof."

I giggle at my brother's 'dad voice' but my next thought takes me back to my solemn mood. "I regret not spending more time at home."

"We didn't know, Jules. We can't blame ourselves."

I shrug and lean back on the headrest. His words, well-intentioned and all, don't take the guilt away. Moments later, the front passenger door opens and mom gets into the car while dad runs to the other side and gets in himself. We drive back to the hotel in silence, decompressing from yet another emotional day.

* * *

For the second morning in a row, I wake up to the sound of a phone ringing. I reach out with my arm to answer it while moving as little as possible.

"Mrr?" I say into the phone.

"Hey Junebug. I called Dr. Mok and scheduled a consult for mom later in the afternoon, but we have to go to the medical center first to get some tests done. It'll take a while and the waiting rooms are probably pretty small, so you and your brother are on your own today. Is that all right with you?"

Well, not really, because I want to go, but he's not really asking because he wants my opinion. "Yeah, that's fine."

"Okay, call me if you go anywhere. Get a cab, because we'll have the car."

"Got it. I'm going to come over and wish mom luck." I hang up the phone and roll out of my bed before climbing up on Chase's and jumping like a little kid. After enduring a string of curse words, I wrap myself in a hotel robe and go up to mom and dad's room.

I hate waiting. I'm impatient, and when the stakes are high, it's even worse. This is agonizing. I've worked out, gone swimming, filed my nails, e-mailed my friends and eaten about four meals' worth of food and they're still not home. I don't want to leave in case I'm out when they come back, and then I'll have to take an even-more-agonizing cab ride home to find out the news. Chase is much more nonchalant about the whole thing, sitting on the couch with his feet propped up, flipping through crappy hotel cable in mom and dad's suite.

"Julia, you're making me dizzy with the pacing. Sit down already."

My feet are getting tired anyway, so I plop down next to him. One extraordinarily agonizing hour later, the door finally clicks. I suddenly wish I hadn't eaten so much, because it feels like my stomach is in my throat.

Dad holds the door open for mom, who trudges in like she's fought a war. She must be exhausted from being poked, prodded and scanned all day. I look expectantly at dad, who doesn't meet our eyes. He reaches for mom's hand, walks into the room and turns the TV off. I swallow audibly.

He clears his throat before speaking, which means the doctor voice is coming. "Our suspicions were confirmed; your mom is in the very early stages of Alzheimer's disease, and with her mother's history, the prognosis isn't great." I start seeing spots. "There are several drug treatments available, but there's no guarantee that any one of them will be effective. Your mom has been put on the newest one. It's designed to slow the progression of the disease and give her up to ten years before it becomes advanced. In very rare cases, it can reverse the damage that's already occurred. We should just hope that it serves its primary purpose, though."

I try to say "okay" but it comes out a broken whisper. Chase leans over and puts his arm around my shoulder. He's trying to hide it, but I can feel him shaking.

"There are side effects. The medication can cause simple partial seizures, which in a more advanced Alzheimer's patient would be difficult to identify because its symptoms might be construed as part of the disease, but your mom's not that far ahead. If you notice any signs that might suggest she had a seizure, take her to the hospital first, and then call me if I'm not already with you."

I lied when I said I'm old enough to deal with this. I don't think I'll ever be old enough to deal with my mom going through this. I nod, not trusting my voice.

"We've done all we can do, for now. We'll come back next month to check the progression of her symptoms to see if there's any decline." His demeanor lightens as he goes back to just being our dad. "Do you have any questions?"

"Yeah," Chase says from beside me. "When are we going home?"

"Tonight, if you want. Or tomorrow morning."

Who cares what we want. "Mom?" I ask.

"Tonight," she says. She steps towards us and Chase and I meet her halfway, crushing her in a huge hug.

Dad attempts to encircle all three of us in his arms. "We'll get through this," he whispers.

After a moment, we separate and I start to gather the things I've left around the room. There's another message on my phone from Aunt Izzie that I missed in all my activities today. She probably thinks that I'm more likely to spoil the family secrets.

"Mom?" I call out. "Aunt Izzie e-mailed me again."

She sighs. "Yeah, she left us a message again, too. I'll... we'll tell them tomorrow."

Dad looks up from his computer with a concerned look on his face. "Are you sure? It'll be chaos once everyone knows."

"I'm not doing what my mom did. It was hell keeping her condition a secret, Derek," she says. "I don't want to put anyone else through that."

Oh god, when my Harvard profs read my name and match it with my face, they're going to ask me about her. It happened in my pre-med classes, and I only had a handful of those. I don't know what would be worse: telling the truth when they ask and possibly having to announce to my entire class that my mother has Alzheimer's, lying through my teeth and saying she's traveling or something, or having them do the sympathetic tilted head thing when doctors are giving people bad news and give her their regards or whatever.

"Look, we can tell your friends, but everyone else already thinks you're taking the summer off to spend time with the kids. You have time to decide if you want to announce it to the everyone else," dad argues softly.

"Fine," she agrees. "But I'm going to tell everyone who matters tomorrow."

I have a feeling that our house is about to become very crowded.


End file.
